The present invention relates generally to the art of cutting and handling of materials.
In the wire cutting and stripping industry, the wire feeding mechanisms of the conventional wire cutting and stripping apparatus is arranged to push the wire through the wire cutters until the required length extends beyond the cutters. When the required lengths reach relatively long proportions, a point is reached in which the feeding mechanism no longer has sufficient power to effectively push the wire. Thus, a problem arises due to the inability of the mechanism to effectively carry or transport the long portions of wire extending beyond the cutters, and to stack these long cut wires in an orderly fashion.
It has been found that if the wire is not properly transported, there is an imminent possibility of its jamming, and thus necessitate shutting down the apparatus with a concomitant loss of time and materials.
The present invention proposes to solve the foregoing problem by providing a pair of long looped belts which are arranged with their confronting surface faces in converging relation to provide a longitudinally moving V-trough for receiving and transporting the wire lengths as the wire issues from the cutting mechanism. A power actuator is arranged to open the converged edges of the trough to discharge the received cut length into a receiver by gravity, and thereafter close the edges for the reception of another cut length in delayed timed relation to a signal from the cutting mechanism indicating the completion of a cutting operation.